Frå The New Yorker: The climax of Barack Obama's 1995 memoir, «Dreams from My Father,» occurs in rural Kenya when the author sits between the graves of his father and his grandfather and weeps. Obama, then in his late twenties, hardly knew his father and never met his grandfather, but in the course of writing the book he had learned their stories in devastating detail. Both were proud, ambitious men who travelled far from the Luo-speaking villages where they grew up-indeed, Obama's grandmother still has her son's Harvard diploma hanging in her house nearby. Their respective struggles in the world ended painfully, in bitter loneliness. Beside their graves, Obama, a middle-class American, both mourns and, for the first time, understands his African forebears. Frå Morgenbladet: Klimakset i Barack Obamas memoarer fra 1995, «Dreams from My Father», finner sted på den kenyanske landsbygda når forfatteren sitter mellom sin fars og bestefars graver og gråter. Obama, som da nærmet seg tredve, kjente knapt faren og hadde aldri møtt bestefaren. Men under arbeidet med boken hadde han lært dem begge å kjenne: De var stolte, ambisiøse menn som reiste langt av sted fra sine luo-talende landsbyer – Obamas bestemor har fremdeles sin sønns Harvard-diplom hengende på veggen. Begge menns liv endte i bitter ensomhet. På gravlunden forstår den amerikanske middelklassegutten sine afrikanske forfedre for første gang.